


Poorly Spun Threads

by SofiaDragon



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Gender Dysphoria, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Multi, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Talking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-02-08 19:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12871782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaDragon/pseuds/SofiaDragon
Summary: Deleted and alternate scenes from my Turn of the Wheel series.Chapter 1: Version of the battle on Jotunheim from the first draft.Chapter 2: Alternate early 'you are adopted' reveal.Chapter 3: Loki talks to Thor after he is banished to Earth, then deals with the treasonous actions of the Warriors Three, Sif, and Heimdall.





	1. To Jotunheim!

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Timely Warning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813853) by [SofiaDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaDragon/pseuds/SofiaDragon). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki has not yet had the chance to learn that his 'wild magic' is Ranger magic, never learned to control it, and Jotunheim is a great deal less habitable.

"Run back home little princess," the deep voice of the sentry growled.

"Damn," Loki sighed. Thor turned and slammed his hammer into the offensive sentry hard enough to knock him back into the wall of the ice palace.

"Next?" the arrogant idiot asked, and Loki wanted to strangle him.

* * *

Loki turned, leading with a swift dagger, to catch the giant that rushed him in the gut. The giant crumpled from the power of Loki's magic stabbing his vital organs through the metal conduit. It was a move of desperation. They never had the upper hand in this fight, and the advantage of mobility was quickly failing them. Thor had barely moved, but the other warriors were following Loki's lead and retreating as they could. It was slow, begrudging obedience to the only logical action they could possibly take, but at least they were following Loki. Thor could fly, but the rest of them could not. Loki had to remember that, and school himself to lead the retreat properly and with greater command knowing his brother could catch up. It was a hard thing, as he did not want to leave his brother behind.

These thoughts made him slow, and the wounded Jotun grabbed for him. Horrified, and unable to wrench his arm from the grip, Loki saw his vambrace fall away in broken fragments of metal, even the leather glove underneath shattering like ice and flaking away. He steeled himself against the pain of ice on uncovered skin, but it didn't come. His arm was still held in a vice-like grip, but he felt no pain from the powerful ice magic. Something strange fluttered under his skin, spilling out into his hand and he felt it creeping under his armor and up his arm.

Where the Jotun had touched him, he had turned blue. Putting the shock aside for a moment, he slashed at the warrior that held tight to his arm, putting him down hard with an overpowered stab to the heart. He looked down at his tainted arm, willing warmth and magic into it. As he watched, the cold and the blue fled effortlessly from his skin, like washing off clay dust with warm water. Loki's mind spun, danced, and sputtered. He had nothing for this, not now. He needed time, and perhaps some study into curses, and probably a lot of alcohol somewhere along the line if it didn't interact with whatever had been done to him to deal with this. He forced the horror away, it was unhelpful in battle.

Looking up, he saw Fandral execute a complicated move to fell his attacker, only to be taken by surprise by spikes of ice. Loki pulled his magic into a dart of emerald power and felled the offending ice warrior in one hit. Sif and the other warriors went to Fandral immediately, and Sif screamed for Thor's attention. They were defeated, clearly, and if Thor wouldn't deal with this properly then Loki would have to.

"We must go!" Loki shouted, not just at Thor. He heard the answer through the fight, distant as it was. Thor threw his hammer, clearing a path. Loki sprinted toward the others, head down to make a smaller target as he moved. He focused on the fizz of magic around him, preparing to strike any that threatened the wounded warriors before they had collected Fandral from where he was impaled. He felt the change, a powerful bolt of magic moving through the ice, and straitened in shock. Laufey himself had cast something incredibly powerful, something that would be bad news for them, and Loki started to move before the spell finished it's work. Volstagg hefted Fandral over his shoulders and shouted needlessly for everyone to run as the ice flaked away from what he had thought was a stone carving of an ice dragon. Apparently, it was just a sleeping ice dragon. Joy.

Were it his only opponent, Loki was quite certain he could take the creature. If he had to take it on while defending wounded comrades, it would be a difficult but not impossible task. To fight such a thing here among an army of Frost Giants out for his blood was so far into madness that Loki discarded the idea of even attempting an attack before it was fully formed. Thankfully, he was not the only one with sense, and the other warriors were running as fast as Volstag could go away from the thing. Loki could have moved faster, but he kept a rear-guard position. Sif and Hogun were on either side of Volstag, keeping pace in the rough terrain. Sif went wide to the right, then wider searching for the clearest path through the uneven ice and snow, and then the beast focused on the single female warrior.

She was lucky, dodging through the beast's tail spikes after a weak point in the ice gave out beneath the creature, but it gave the other warriors ideas. Loki tried to signal Hogun, but the other warrior must have realized the tactical disadvantage of retreating in a group and they fanned out in a wide arc so that an attack on one would not be an attack on all. The chaos of battle was still ringing behind them, they were being chased by foes nearly as swift as they were when not injured, and suddenly Thor did something _impressive_.

Loki looked back and saw the ice caving in. Terror seized him, fueling his legs to run faster. Why had he never mastered flight? He did not want to die by falling hundreds of feet into the icy abyss. The cracking ice forced the other warriors together again, racing against the collapse. Loki could feel tremors under his feet that he did not like and he needed to do something. They weren't far from the bridge now. Volstagg put whatever reserves of strength he had into the final sprint. Loki could feel something wrong. Something was wrong in the air, in the ice, in the way it had been shaking under his feet and not crumbling.

He reached into himself, to that place where his magic pooled. He didn't let his mind go too far in reasoning this. He was cursed, marked somehow, and he needed to delay whatever enemies were coming until the Bifrost was open and taking them all home so he could deal with that. He could think of nothing, other than an impressive light show, that the strange ability his future self had shown him was good for. The Jotnar had proven themselves susceptible to illusion. Therefore, he would make a pretty light show and hope they all thought he was horrifically dangerous and overloading his magic.

It was likely the most reckless thing he had decided to do in five hundred years. He pulled and stretched his magic, flaring it outward. He'd been slightly concerned it wouldn't work without the music, but survival had always been a great focus point for him. If he needed to cast a spell to survive, he could, and it never failed him. The globe of sparking light and flickering green that was his _soul_ spread outward in an impressive pissing contest of magical power. It shone and swirled like an aurora, melting into the ice.

Disorientation during battle was bad, he knew that. He knew it was a side effect. He wasn't all in his own skin anymore, and he was suddenly so much more aware of every plane of ice and sweep of snow around him. He knew in detail, when the spell swept over them, the exact injuries his fellow warriors had sustained. He'd never been so close to other people when he'd done this, and was glad his magic didn't push them over the edge of the abyss. It did stagger them. Intimate knowledge of their condition aside, he also felt what was below them. The dragon had not been lost to the abyss, and while contact with his magic startled the creature it did not hurt it.

Loki's magic did calm the creature considerably, filling into its mind and sharing a sense of self. It was hard to think, through the haze. The magic of Jotunheim started to fill in where his own magic had left, and it was different from the natural magic in Asgard's hills. From below, it was sharp and cold. From above, the aurora that supplied the only light in the realm sparkled down a gentle power. All around him was desperation, starvation, pain, and sadness. He couldn't endure it. This realm felt broken and empty compared to Asgard.

He'd only meant to flare out his magic in a little circle, as he'd trained himself to do. He'd only meant to dazzle, distract, and confuse those who wished to kill him. He couldn't control it, though. Loki was pushing and stretching further and further outward, a blaze of gentle aurora dancing over the ice, seeping into it. The collapse stopped, the ice knitting together at his magic's touch. The exposed planes of ice glittered with internal light near him, alive with his magic, with their own magic, as he woke something long asleep. He was dimly aware that Thor was flying to them, but no more than he was aware of the caverns deep beneath them sparking with new light and life. Like the flowers he had made bloom, the land flourished wherever his magic touched it.

There were no sparks of entropy from Loki, the charge in the land around him seemed to be all entropy and his magic responded with the opposite force to balance the extreme imbalance he felt. The flickering green flames that were his own destructive magics were kept close to him, shedding heat for himself and his companions. No, just his companions, really. He didn't need heat when he had the power of the aurora above flooding into him in a gentle shower.

The ice dragon calmly crawled over the edge, a curiosity and a happiness sparking in it right up until Thor smashed the back of its skull out with his hammer. Loki howled, the pain of death was _inside_ him. The shining gold of Thor's power had torn through the icy blue life that had been swirling, exchanging, in and out of Loki's magic and it _hurt_. He did not feel the same exchange from the Jotnar, or from the æsir. They had their own wills and weren't so easily made a part of his magic's song. Not unless they chose to join him.

Loki knew this, because someone had chosen to join him. Someone was reaching out, someone badly injured, and before he knew what his magic was doing he did all for that distant mind that he could not do for the poor beast Thor had just slain. It was all he could do to lessen the suffering he felt, but it was not enough. His vision was only of the flow of seidr, and he looked at Jotunheim and its branch of Yggdrasil in horror. He had distant awareness that the army of angry Jotnar was around them now, and one of them was grabbing his abandoned body about the waist.

Blazing, blinding pain tore through Jotunheim, and in so doing tore through Loki. His magic reversed at last, heeding the call of his body in self-preservation. Was that the bifrost? Was that why mother insisted it gave her headaches and disliked using it? Loki was aware enough of himself now to know he was shaking, or perhaps being shaken. The Jotun had a hold on his belt and was talking at him, he knew that much. His sight came back from elsewhere to look through his own eyes and he could see at least two rows of Jotnar between him and his father. The Jotun holding his limp body turned him carefully, touching only where his armor was thickest.

"Can you hear me now?" he asked, his horrid blue face twisted in confusion.

"Mostly," Loki meant to say, but he was still so far gone that he'd only managed a strangled sound of pain and confusion.

"The Seidrmen don't go into the dream anymore, unless they are ready to die. Would you wish death before capture?" the soldier was older, but not elderly. His body was almost frail from hunger and that aged him far faster than years. Loki could feel it running under the Jotun's skin. There was a memory of some time before the hunger, but it was long past and the echoes coming from Yggdrasil were distorted and sickly. The soldiers around them, all younger, had no such memory. "Did you know it would bleed your life dry?" Loki abandoned speech, and simply pushed his magic at the soldier hoping that the gentle way he was being handled was a good sign. The older man shifted him until he was cradled like a child, red eyes looking deeply into green.

Whatever the old man was looking for in Loki's eyes he must have found, because he nodded and ordered the others aside. Loki had strength and will enough to turn his head, his magic still wild. Slowly the frozen shards of it were being bundled together and melted back into the pool of energy within him. Light from the bifrost had helped even as it hurt, as did the blazing white tip of Gugnir. The pain gave him focus, as it was a sharp point instead of the creeping death all around him. The entropy still ached, and he focused on the shining light around his father. It was not so different from Asgard's natural light, just too white-hot for comfort, and he folded it into himself to help melt his shattered seidr.

"We are beyond diplomacy now, Allfather. You'll get what your son came for," Laufey was speaking, and Loki disliked every aspect of it.

"My King," the old soldier interrupted, "this seidrman has nearly sacrificed his life and magic in apology. What one son of Odin has broken, the other seeks to repair." There were too many voices in the answer to that entreaty for Loki too keep track of, but he knew Thor was outraged.

"Silence!" two kings shouted, not quite in unison enough to be funny. Loki laughed anyway, and then laughed more because he was enough back in his own skin to control his voice, even if it was broken and thready.

"I think I healed someone named Byleistr. I could be mistaken, of course, as I don't think my magic has been so thoroughly poisoned in all my life," Loki wheezed. It was good that everyone had gone silent or they wouldn't have heard him, but his words caused another round of shouting that Loki's abused psyche did not appreciate.

"He speaks the truth, Prince Byleistr lives!" a voice shouted from somewhere far back from the front line, magically amplified, and there was something smug in Odin's expression.

"You see, King Laufey, it does not have to be war between our people," Odin advised.

"A pity, that the more intelligent of your sons will die first," Laufey answered. His voice was so low in pitch that it was hard to notice the genuine regret in it. Lucky for Loki his senses were still only vaguely attached to his body and he could feel emotions tumbling around like drunken dancers. Opening himself like this for the first time around sentient creatures would have been hard enough without such a large crowd to sift through. He tried to keep his focus forward and toward the light radiating off the spear Gugnir.

"You will not harm my brother!" Thor's shout was loudest.

"Will someone muzzle him already, I'm too sick to deal with his shouting," Loki griped. It amused the soldier who cradled him. Apparently, he'd been a younger brother once, and the sentiment was familiar.

"The child poisons himself, as he has used seidr in Jotunheim without caution," Laufey clarified. Loki took a deep breath, decided playing the weakling had gone on too long, and pushed himself away from the old soldier with a flip. He stuck the landing, to his own surprise.

"The child heals himself," Loki breathed, standing solidly between the Jotnar and the circle of light Odin cast. "Faster than you might expect, but slower than I might like. Am I free to go, King Laufey?" Loki asked with a slight bow of respect, hoping his talents as a lie-smith would still serve him well with his head spinning.

"You may go to die in comfort, but I have one demand," Laufey commanded, and Loki didn't need the fading echoes of magic to hear respect there. "As your magic withers and eats you from within, remind your brother that you sued for peace and spoke reasonably, but he caused you to use your seidr in this place and opened you to the poison in this realm."

"If I am dying, then I will do so, but as I doubt I am I think I will fail at that task. It was a passing fever, and one I've quite fully shaken off, as you see," Loki lied. His magic wasn't quite back to normal, but the searing heat of the bifrost was gathering again to take them home. It was melting the last of the ice in him, and while he anticipated some pain during travel he was sure he was fine. Loki walked straight-backed toward the bright circle. "However, Thor, if you ever make me do that again, I'm going to let Yggdrasil eat _you_ in my place." Loki stopped with his toes just outside the circle and looked at Laufey. "Is that a fitting compromise?"

"There can be no peace between our realms," Laufey declared, "and you will shortly die."

* * *

Loki stepped forward and the bifrost blazed into being around them. The heat did hurt, but Loki was happy to go from nearly sucked dry of heat and life to fully overloaded with energy. He let the kaleidescope of light pour out into his abused armor to bleed off the excess, and was pleased to see it repair itself partially. He felt better with leather again covering his left arm, though it was just a thin glove. Odin and Thor had been shouting from the moment they landed, and Loki distantly heard Odin order the wounded warriors to the healing rooms. Loki took the moment of semi-privacy to breathe deeply and relax, content that all attention was off him and the danger had passed.

"Come on, Loki," Sif insisted quietly, tugging at his arm. "The healers will cure whatever those creatures did to you."

"There won't be a kingdom to protect, if you do not act," Thor's voice cut across Sif's, tense and unrepentant. Loki wanted to give his brother his full attention, but he had a more pressing issue.

"I am not poisoned; it was a metaphor, as all talk of seidr is," Loki explained. "Now give me a moment of peace to cleanse myself of their ice. There is enough heat here."

"The Jotuns must learn to fear me, just as they once feared you." Thor continued, and Loki flinched. Sif took it as a sign of pain rather than fear for his brother, and her arms braced him as if afraid his legs would give out. Odin was standing at the top of the dais in the middle of the room, his posture rigid with contained rage. Thor was still standing in front of the bifrost gate. Loki had landed more to the side, and had stepped up to the edge of the dais almost unconsciously as he was drawn to the heat and light he had been using to heal himself.

"That's pride and vanity talking, not leadership. You've forgotten everything I ever taught you about a warrior's patience," Odin chided. Loki took another deep breath, and allowed himself to lean on Sif. If she was going to be silly about this then he was going to use it. He still had excess light in his system, and while he was tired he could feel no ice or creeping entropy seeking to spread his life force evenly across several leagues of frozen waste. Sif mumbled something to the effect of 'if you are well then why can't you stand?' and he ignored her.

"While you wait and be patient the nine realms laugh at us. The old ways are done; you'd stand giving speeches while Asgard falls," Thor accused, anger ringing clearly.

"You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!" Odin shouted back in rage.

"And you are an old man and a fool!" Thor raged as well. Loki's head snapped up, dropping his interior inspection and standing straight again, pulling away from Sif. Odin was silent, the rage on his face melting into something else.

"Yes, I was a fool to think you were ready," Odin's voice was soft and filled with sorrow. That never boded well.

"Father," Loki spoke, walking up the steps to try and intervene. Thor was not alone in guilt, and Loki knew admitting his part in this fiasco and explaining it properly would lessen Odin's pain. Loki could not stand to see the disappointment in his father's eyes, and thought that knowing that _someone_ had logical reasons for what happened would help banish it.

Odin silenced him with a vicious growl after only two steps, and Loki jumped back eyes wide with fear. Their father had never been so upset as to rebuke Loki with an animalistic roar of pure rage. Loki's back hit Sif when he dropped back down a step on the dais, and she was suddenly supporting him again. He was vaguely embarrassed that there was someone witnessing the fear he had of his father displayed nakedly on his face as he felt her looking between them. He was glad she was more loyal to Thor, because anyone with proper loyalty to the royal house would have taken one glance at Loki's ashen complexion and hauled him off to the healing rooms.

"Thor Odinson, you have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war," Odin proclaimed, punctuating the verdict by once again activating the bifrost. Loki couldn't think about what was going to happen next. His mind had frozen in place with the thought half-formed, refusing to understand what he was seeing. "You are unworthy of these realms. You are unworthy of your title. You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed." Odin pulled off the magic seals that protected Thor and could identify him as Crowned Prince and tore off Thor's cape while he raged, the thundering anger simmering down into a colder venom.

"What?" Sif breathed, and Loki wouldn't have heard if it hadn't been in his ear. Loki himself could only look on in despair. He knew Thor was not ready for the throne, but this was too much. The slack-jawed bewilderment on Thor's face clearly showed he still did not understand why he was in the wrong or what their father was about to do to him. Loki felt the thought trying to complete in his head, but it just made him dizzy.

"I now take from you your power. In the name of my father and his father before, I Odin All-father cast you out!" Loki's jaw dropped. He watched helplessly as his brother was banished. He saw the hammer follow Thor, and breathed a sigh of relief. At least his brother would not be helpless in whatever realm he'd been sent to. Odin turned away toward the city, but stopped in the doorway to the observatory. By the time Loki remembered how to work his legs, Sif had already marched over to the tired king.

"Allfather, please," she began.

"I ordered you to go to the healing rooms," Odin reminded them. Loki came up behind his father, and the old man turned to his younger son. He cast a critical look over him, lingering on the mismatched arm. "Laufey seemed sure you were to die."

"The very air in Jotunheim carries poison," Loki admitted, but rushed to explain. "It comes from Yggdrasil herself. I cannot explain it, but using seidr in that realm without caution opens one to a terrible emptiness. All magic was doubly draining, and I did feel a creeping cold. I played dead when I realized I was surrounded, in the hope that..." Loki cut off the thought of what they may have done. It was far too soon to use that. "The light of the bifrost cleansed it from me when you arrived."

"Is that so?" Odin asked, and Loki cast a critical eye right back at his father. He did look weary, and had for some time, but that wasn't the point.

"Did you feel it, father?" Loki asked.

"I stood in the light of the bifrost and Gugnir, and did not open myself to foreign seidr. Go to the healing rooms at once and do not test my patience until you are finished there." With that the king rode off on the horse Loki had bred for him, and the wave of pride he always felt at seeing Sleipnir tempered his emotions to something less chaotic. Loki sat in the back of a cart and allowed himself to be taken to the healing rooms by the guards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter of A Timely Warning originally took place a week before the coronation. This meant that Loki didn't really have time to master wild magic or... do much of anything to change how events would go down, really. In the first pass, it was a simple Avengers fix-it without much thought put in. I moved the start date back to five years before, then a full century before as I worked through what I wanted to do with the story.


	2. Family Support

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alternative to Chapter 14 of Founding a Life from the first draft timeline, in which Odin reveals Loki's origin and Loki is more honest about his sexual experiments.

Time passed swiftly. Mother said he looked happier and less stressed when he met with her and he couldn’t disagree. She played the harp and he sat at the piano for most of the morning, going over the melodies he would hear at the upcoming festival. She encouraged him to keep at whatever was giving him such happiness, and they talked lightly on how he might balance his life once he was living on his own.

Loki spent Monday forcing the guardsmen through advanced drills. The lack of time to prepare meant that the men expected a re-hash of their combat trials, but by noon they started to realize something was off. There was no break for lunch, and at times the rapid pace of the training was almost as swift as real combat. Packs were given to the men late in the afternoon and they started marching. A guard post in the Mage’s wing was a comfortable post: they guarded the halls of scholars against thieves and vandals. They lived in the capitol, stood watch in comfort, and were often in the company of young women studying through their apprenticeship. Loki was reminding them of less desirable posts. The hard march lasted into the night before they made camp. They were all fresh and well-fed fro the weekend. There was no reason they couldn’t march until dawn, and Loki gave the eight men who had lagged too far behind the sharpest tongue-lashing they had ever had for the laziness. If he could keep in proper condition while spending hours on end in the library, then guardsmen who were paid to spend a certain amount of time training their bodies had no excuse.

Since they had to stop early, they had to move faster the next day to reach the large, flat grasslands where full-scale war games were played. The pace was hard on Loki, and a couple men were left behind altogether - when they caught up would no longer be part of the Mage Guard and would be sent back to Gladsheim for reassignment. Amora the Enchantress and seven other sorceresses they had selected were waiting for them when they arrived just before sundown, having traveled there in comfortable flying boats.

Loki introduced the women as their opponents for the day’s exercise. The stupid laughed, the smart gathered their willpower. They made camp for the night and settled down to rest. The sorceresses wove their magic through the field while most of the men settled down to rest. The more alert, including Alec, were not as surprised when they were attacked in the night.

When dawn broke the camp was a shambles. Illusions, mage fire, bewitched animals, and even the odd mind control spell had broken the men and scattered them into the trees. Loki called them back to the tattered tents, asking them what sort of foes they expected to fight while guarding the home of the most powerful magics in the nine realms. Their post was comfortable and honored because it was the most difficult - those seeking to steal from their wards would not square off in honorable combat. They used the wily tricks of women, or were women, and if they could not hold together and listen to commands then they made themselves into an illusion: paper soldiers with no substance at all.

The speech was one of Loki’s best, leaving not a single man with his head held high. Their utter defeat by a handful of women stung all the worse as Loki explained that he had taken no part in either side beyond giving ignored orders to the guardsmen: he cast no spell and drew no blade. It was their own disobedience and sloth that defeated them, and made sure they knew it.

The sorceresses were thanked and dismissed. The men were given some actual rest. Then, Loki started drilling him in his own way. How to recognize mental enchantment in a shield-brother, the practicality or jumping out of the way of projectiles, and the idea that dodging an unknown spell was five times less likely to kill you than bocking it with a shield were all covered. These were things that they ought to have known, tactics that they had been taught before they could join this unit, but they were not the sort of thing one could walk onto the training grounds and practice any day. It took special preparation for these drills, and their former commanded had neglected it. Knowledge of magic and physical weakness did not go hand in hand, and even if it did, well, he’d only needed to speak Lorelei’s name to have them all stiffen in fear.

When Loki returned to the capitol late Friday evening the men were dragging their feet with exhaustion. He kept a slow pace to conceal his own fatigue, just managing to endure through the official ceremony in the Throne Room that raised Alec to Commander of the Mage Guard before he collapsed onto his chaise. He’d get to the bathtub once he regained feeling in his legs. Thor suddenly entering his front room startled Loki, and the bright sunlight streaming in around the curtains had him blinking in confusion until he realized he’d fallen asleep on the chaise. If he smelled half as filthy as he felt Thor had likely come investigating the stink all the way from his own bedroom.

“Good Morning, Brother,” Thor laughed. “I take it you worked yourself as hard as the guardsmen?”

“Not so loud,” Loki complained, scraping himself up and blinking around until he located the covered pot of tea that had been left for him. It was a bit cold despite the warming plate, but it was liquid and plentiful.

“Well, I’ll let you recover, but if you are awake enough by evening I’ll be out at the Oak Tavern this evening,” Thor chuckled, patting Loki on the head like a child. Loki crawled through a bath and into soft clothes before spending a lazy day of rest lounging in the garden. He considered meeting up with Thor. A couple months ago he would have gone no matter how he felt about it, and he should go flirt with Sif more, but he didn’t like himself when he was drunk (not that he liked himself too well sober.)

The introspection forced on him by the revelation of his changeling nature was a bother. He’d known perfectly well who he was: the second-born Prince of Asgard, sorcerer and warrior. He’d imagined that either Father or Thor would use him for his tactical and architectural skills, since his magical talents were too womanly to acknowledge with an official post, but they hadn’t. He did like working with the Justicar, but it was a fairly low position in the court for someone of his rank. The workings he used to discern truth were a sorceress’ job, the place of an artisan’s daughter. He couldn’t say he disliked the scandal the post initially created or the precedent that now allowed others to beg training outside their expected roles, but it was disappointing to have his life stagnate.

Yes, that was the source of his misery: The sameness. There were so many things he could do, but since he’d finished his conscription he had gone back to the place in the court he’d carved for himself and stayed there. Staying put wasn’t something he ever liked, and there was no clear path to advance for a man on a woman’s profession. Invention was the only thing open to him, but for all that he could memorize whole books of spells he was not a prolific creator of them. The best of his ‘invention’ was in melding different disciplines to create more efficient methods of achieving known ends. While his ability to travel the realms was greater than most, it was hardly groundbreaking. He doubted he’d actually achieve much beyond locating and re-publishing rare or lost knowledge.

Changing his shape was a thrill, it opened up his life to a thousand possibilities. While Odin insisted that Loki was better off never leaving the shape he currently had and required assurances that his son had no desire to lay with men, that simply wasn’t true. He longed to lose his feminine virginity, but he knew how disappointed his father would be at the mere concept of his son having such desire. He’d loved how accepting his mother was, and it chafed how she seemed to only be so welcoming to the idea as a necessary experimentation for his continued health. He’d been playing up his ‘illness’ to keep her sympathy and keep Thor from thinking about it too much, but he could only blame the faint scars on his seidr for so long. He missed Odaric’s casual acceptance of his duality, and wasn’t that the worst of all the ridiculous and impossible emotions his mind could choose to dwell on?

What was he? Who was he? The questions chased themselves in his mind, refusing to be properly answered. He’d put them aside, managed to keep himself busy with the rebellion stirring among the common people and the translations, but they came rushing back as he lay across a bench surrounded with late summer flowers. He wanted to change to his feminine form, meander through the garden and braid flowers in his hair, then go to the tavern smelling of sweet nectar and dressed in the finest silk. He wanted to go hunting with Thor during the festival and come home to stand beside his mother in the temple as a sorceress. He wanted to bring someone into his bed willing to roll dice over what set of physiology Loki would cover them with. He wanted to know what Rald’s son was blushing about, and then give him a better reason.

He stayed on the bench.

There was something broken inside him, something wrong. There had to be. This was all confusion and sickness of the mind, like Father said it was. He’d confused himself, and he needed to get a grip on his mind before he lost it. He should go drinking with Thor and whisper of carnal pleasures in the ear of some woman until she blushes and takes him back to her bed. He should flirt with Sif and fan the sparks the thrill of conquest struck in his heart until he loved her as much as his lying tongue said he did. He should forget his other shapes now that Eir had confirmed the health of them and be a proper son of Asgard.

“My son, are you well?” Mother’s voice dripped concern. Loki sat up quickly, turning away to hide his face. It was too late, she must have seen him crying. Even worse, she wasn’t alone.

“Loki,” Father’s voice rumbled, “answer your Mother.”

“I have not been well in eight centuries,” Loki said, the words spilling from him in anguish.

“Eir told me that you healed yourself,” Mother spoke gently. “Was she mistaken? Are you having another… spasm?”

“No,” Loki told them. “It is nothing like that.”

“Loki,” Father sighed, his hand suddenly squeezing Loki’s shoulder. “You need to give us a proper answer.”

“I wish I could, but I don’t have one,” Loki said.

“Lady Sif should not be so unkind to you,” Father said, and Loki jumped. “I hadn’t realized you looked at her that way.”

“I… haven’t given up,” Loki admitted, glad to talk about anything else. He turned to sit properly on the bench and his parents settled next to him, Mother managing to sit on the far side of Father and still see him clearly. “I thought I had, but then General Tyr asked me for a favor. After I began I discovered that perhaps I’d made a mistake agreeing.”

“He spoke to me about you two not long ago. I told him I didn’t think you held any fondness for Lady Sif at all. I took offense when the Grandmaster insinuated I didn’t know you well, but perhaps I deserved those words,” Father sighed. “Exactly what favor did he ask of you?”

“Sif has been pining after Thor for decades, but he’ll never look at her. Not the way things are, in any case. Tyr wanted me to try and turn her head, enough to show her that she has set herself up for heartbreak. The idea is that she would realize that other men look at her with fondness, and not that I would have her. I warned him that I once… I cut off her hair when she teased me for being more of a girl than she was. That was what it was about: she’d been cruel to me when I was about to confess to her,” Loki finished in a rush.

“You were still young then,” Odin observed, thoughtful.

“At that age Thor was pulling on pigtails,” Mother smiled fondly, her voice gentle with good memories. “Young boys are as likely to shove a girl they fancy into a mud puddle as give her a flower.” Father nodded, clearly thinking of the prank in that light for the first time.

“You never did say your side of things,” he prompted. It took significant effort for Loki to restrain himself from pointing out who told him to be quiet and accept his punishment for doing such a terrible thing to a helpless girl. Mother shook her head as if she knew well enough, but sat back a little clearly waiting for a more detailed explanation.

“I’d woven two crowns of flowers, but I had arrived too early. I stood outside the door and kept my back straight, as if I was at court observing. Before I could give one of the crowns to her I’d been spotted by the other girls in her sewing class. I stood my ground and waited for their class to end even though they were all giggling at me. I was wearing the other crown, which perhaps was the biggest mistake of the day. Sif was the loudest voice. She tossed the apron she’d been embroidering at me and said I wasn’t dressed right to join their class, and a number of other things I don’t quite remember.” That was a lie, he could recite the hateful speech easily. “The next day when I was swimming with Thor Sif stole my clothes and left behind a dress. After that the other boys wouldn’t let me play with them, because Sif said I was ergi.”

“Such language at that age?” Mother gasped.

“I hadn’t thought such things started until much later,” Father grumbled.

“It was Sif and Fandral that started it, and yes that was when it began. As far as I am aware, in any case,” Loki huffed. “I cut off her hair, and that seemed to solve things for a while. I was in trouble, but I wasn’t a coward or unworthy of playing boy’s games any longer.”

“And now it pains you again,” Odin sighed. “What happened?”

“Little,” Loki shrugged.

“What did you do?” Mother asked, always knowing the right question to ask.

“Poured out my heart and soul after having been welcomed to Tyr’s table, where he made a show of approving of me, and kissed her,” Loki rushed out the words.

“How did she react?” Odin asked.

“A few words of suspicion, followed by a few that border on blackmail, and then nothing. The next day it was as if I’d never said a thing. It is not as if I’ve given her much time to consider,” Loki admitted. “I just don’t have much hope.”

“Somehow I don’t think that is all that is on your mind,” Mother supposed.

“Death,” Loki murmured.

“What?” Odin barked, the hand on Loki’s shoulder clenching.

“There has been some unrest among the common people, surrounding the announcement of Thor’s coronation,” Loki said quietly.

“Nonsense and paranoia,” Odin dismissed. “It will settle down before the festival, if it even takes that long.”

“How long did Ville and Ve live, after you took the throne?” Loki asked his father earnestly. “It is not pride, or not only pride, that motivates me to strike down those who speak ill of my integrity. If I am seen that way, as weak and strange, then…”

“This is why I tried to put a lid on things when you were young,” Odin insisted. “If you would only listen, and act as you ought to, then there would be no issue. You took those men to task well, a fine show of strength and battle prowess. Let that be your shield against such threats.” Loki cringed away from the insistence. He could do those things. He could fight as well as any man could be expected to, better than the average soldier by a league, but it did not leave him in a celebratory mood as it should.

“Is it possible you chose the wrong gender for me?” Loki asked, unable to keep the tremble from his voice. Instead of waiting for an answer Loki rushed to explain, words tumbling out of him like grain from an overturned barrel. “I know you told me to put these things out of mind, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It invades my thoughts and aches my heart. I like magic, I dislike war, I prefer art and quiet over a night in a tavern, I preen over new clothes. Does it matter how good a soldier I am, when I do not revel in battle as the others do? When they are right and I am a coward who would rather avoid a fight? With my way with words, if my heart was in it, I could have plenty of women in my bed. I just don’t try that hard, and my failure in that area only bothers me because of how others view it. I can’t even decide what to make of my affection for Lady Sif, if I want those sparks to catch or if there is even anything for them to catch on.” Loki only stopped speaking because Mother wrapped him in an embrace. Father’s hand was still warm on his shoulder.

“You should have stayed here,” Odin scolded.

“Don’t,” Mother warned him, pulling back from Loki to squeeze in between her son and the arm of the bench. The two men shifted, their good manners letting the woman sit where she pleased.

“These aren’t new thoughts.” Loki was surprised he wasn’t crying again. He felt hollowed out, yet things kept spilling from him. “Finding out what I am only gave me a partial explanation for why I have these feelings. Something solid to pin them to, rather than having them float about me like birds in a fog. At least now I have stuck them all together, as a single problem instead of dozens.”

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Odin assured. Loki snapped his head around to look at his Father. “You are a pain in my lower back, as all sons are, far too curious for your own good, and graced with more intelligence than wisdom, but that is the way of things. This should not trouble you. It is a thing done long ago that could not be undone if we wanted it. If you were in turmoil you should not have left.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Loki complained. “I don’t often leave the palace with the intention of coming back.”

“Explain that,” Mother urged, with the soft sternness she’d used when he was small and refusing to stay abed late at night.

“I nearly threw myself off the balcony at Thor’s name day feast. I didn’t because I’d ruin the party,” Loki said, the words clawing out of him like shards of glass. His gaze was locked on a drooping flower, it’s petals fading with the summer ending. “I leave because I am miserable here, and come home when I remember how hurt you would be if I didn’t.”

“Loki,” Mother breathed.

“If you think this sickness of the mind is caused by my shape-changing, then it is a sickness long festering. I need you to answer me properly. Is there a chance you chose the wrong shape for me? Is this the skin I was meant to have?”Loki asked, desperate.

“This is the skin the Norns gave you, from the moment I first held you in my hands,” Odin said. “You were small, five pounds at most, but with a tremendous pair of lungs.”

“Small like… like my little brother?” Loki spat out before the memory could overwhelm him.

“Smaller,” Father confirmed, voice wistful in memory, “but a boy.”

“Odin, tell him,” Mother urged, holding tight to Loki’s arm.

“He is shaken enough,” Odin argued.

“Tell me,” Loki asked quietly. “Whatever it is, however bad, I’d rather know the truth.”

“I brought you home after the war,” Odin sighed. “A foundling child, crying loud enough that I caught the sound over the clash of battle. I couldn’t leave you there. You couldn’t have been anything other than a newborn at that size, and would have died of neglect within hours. A woman lay nearby in the temple where I found you, rail thin and bloody. To her credit she’d had the strength to put you on the alter, where you could be seen by man and spirit alike.”

“I… I’m a foundling?” Loki asked, bewildered. “Why did you never tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to feel different,” Odin explained, and wasn’t that on theme.

“I wanted you to know the truth from the beginning,” Mother soothed. “Over time, it stopped mattering where you had come from. You were our son.”

“Do you know… was there any sign of my blood kin?” Loki asked.

“Your blanket had your name on it,” Odin offered, “but it was torn and stained. I could only read ‘Lo’ and the mark of your father’s house.”

“Did he not want me?” Loki asked worriedly.

“I saw no need to ask,” Odin said boldly. “I knew him, and I knew he had been there. I saw the emaciated woman laying on the floor, and he would have been able to provide for her if he’d cared for her health. I had every right to take you, and I wanted to, so that was what I did. Somewhere between tucking you into my cloak and arriving back on Asgard I decided I would not place you for foster, and gave you to Frigga with the intention of keeping you as my own. Even when you could only gurgle and fuss, you could talk your way into anything.”

“You were an adorable baby,” Mother agreed.

“An adorable baby boy,” Odin said with emphasis.

“I’m not… I’m…” Loki’s mind ground to a halt.

“Yes, Loki, you are,” Mother insisted. “Whoever birthed you, she gave you to the Norns to care for, and they sent you here.”

“You are high-born, my son, and raised a son of Odin. I did not give my name to you lightly. In the time it took for me to get you home you proved to be strong,” Father assured. “You slept soundly and ate greedily, as babes ought to do, and you had a fearsome grip when you took it into your head to hold onto something.”

“It took me ages to get a good look at you, the first time,” Mother chuckled. “You were so tightly latched onto your father’s cloak and beard we couldn’t get you unwrapped until you started dreaming. All I could see was those big green eyes and chubby cheeks peering out past the edge of the cloak.”

“Point taken, mother,” Loki spoke lightly, but without much humor. “Do I want to know what house I was from? I’d hate to accidentally flirt with a cousin.”

“Odin,” Mother encouraged, “I’d like to know as well.” Loki blinked at her. “What, do you think he tells me everything? We’ve been fighting over that omission for centuries,” she added bitterly.

“Your birth father was a changeling,” Odin offered, “and you have no worry about accidentally marrying into your own blood. He… wed a man, after.”

“My birth father lives as a woman?” Loki asked slowly, as if he didn’t understand what had been said.

“No,” Odin confirmed, clearly disgusted.

“Oh,” Mother breathed. “Well.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” Loki couldn’t help himself, he had to ask.

“Not in Jotunheim,” Odin responded.

“Oh,” Loki replied. That explained the extreme level of disgust. He’d inherited his sexual confusion from his birth-father. Fantastic. He was the son of a traitor. What a lovely bonus. “Oh!” He’d been found in a temple during the war… the war that was being waged only on Jotunheim by that point. “I have Jotun blood.”

“Loki,” Odin sighed.

“I know all the battles of that war by heart, Father. I know that all but the first month was fought on Joutunheim, and that the war lasted nearly a decade. If I was a newborn at the end of it, then the only women available to birth me during a battle would be Jotun,” Loki babbled out the logic.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” Mother breathed.

“Jotun women don’t even look like women until they are heavy with child,” he continued. “A man with such preferences could find compromise with such a partner. Not to mention the… and I’m… oh, damn.” He bent forward, panting.

“I knew telling him was a bad idea,” Odin groused.

“I was born inter,” Loki panted, hands buried in his hair. “Like my birth-mother.”

“Born what?” Odin snapped.

“Inter-sex, a sort of hermaphrodite that chooses,” Mother spoke gently, her hand rubbing Loki’s back. “I’d not heard of them before the war, but Loki and I have read many books about the Jotnar, as they make a good lesson about the cost of war. Apparently such people were common on Jotunheim in times of plenty, and are often still-born in lean times. Why are you so sure that is what you are, my child?”

“I can’t take male form as a Jotun,” Loki confessed. “Nor can I take female form. The only shape my body knows how to make is the one between.”

“You looked male enough during your spasm,” Mother said delicately.

“I am thankful you didn’t look at me that closely, Mother, but I assure you it was perfectly obvious from my vantage point,” Loki sobbed.

“They are natural mages, with strong inborn ties to natural seidr, who scar easily, and take in ambient magic as much as they breathe air,” Mother recited. “It does fit, but it doesn’t change who you are.”

“Doesn’t it? If I wasn’t a changeling what would I look like, some blend of cream and blue on my skin, looking half-dead to both races? Green eyes that glow red in darkness? What will my children be, if they don’t inherit my flexible nature?” Loki asked, panicked.

“A bit like your Father, I imagine,” Mother chuckled. It took a beat to remember she meant Odin, and was referencing Bestla’s heritage. “Thor has mixed blood as well, as I am no Aesir. It is not in our hands, but it is a thing taken care of by Yggdrasil when her people mix. You need not fear deformed children, nor worry that your changeling nature obscures some malformation. You are my handsome son, the same as you have always been. You only understand yourself a bit better.”

“You suspected Loki’s heritage,” Odin accused his wife.

“You were away on Jotunheim and brought me back a child,” she huffed. “I’ve always half-thought you made the temple story up so I wouldn’t chase you off as a philanderer. In any case, I have had a thousand years to work through the same logic Loki used to hit the truth in under a minute. How could I not suspect he had Jotun blood?”

“It would explain why she looked emaciated. She’d have used all her seidr keeping me alive during the war, or I wouldn’t have survived,” Loki sighed, his mind still working on his own problems. He’d been loved, then, and wanted. Jotun women didn’t have unplanned pregnancies. Even if his birth-father was a scoundrel and a traitor he could claim his birth-mother was righteous enough to do all she could for her child. It was her blood that made him ‘between’ and since being born a changeling was an environmental thing and not necessarily of his blood, then whoever his birth-father was didn’t matter so much. Loki heaved a deep breath. “You are right, Mother, this changes nothing of who I am, but I understand myself better. I wish you had told me before.”

“These inter people actually exist naturally?” Odin asked slowly. “I thought it was only sorcery that could swap out one’s gender.”

“It is a natural occurrence, and not just on Jotunheim. There is a type of fae on Alfheim, one of the near-sylvan races if memory serves, and they exist on Muspelheim. Though those on Muspelheim take a hard stance on things, and declare anything that can father a child to be male no matter what else is true of it,” Loki spoke, the regurgitated facts spilling from him as his mind churned at this new knowledge of what he was. “It is not that they switch back an forth, either. They… I am both male and female all the time. I always am, I always have been, and that can’t be changed about me.”

“We started this conversation talking of your long-standing affection for the Lady Sif,” Father argued. “Don’t overwork your mind on a simple matter.”

“Yes, and she is the very image of the stereotypical woman,” Loki drawled. “You know already I enjoy men.”

“You said it was an experimentation,” Odin rebuffed, angry.

“I hadn’t emphasized how successful it was, because I knew how you’d react!” Loki shot back, angry at having had this kept from him so long. This was so much more than just some ingrained prejudice against changelings. He could forgive Odin that, because of Queen Bestla. “It is only because I respect the law of this realm that I didn’t continue after I came home!”

“Loki, you do like women, don’t you? You haven’t been forcing yourself,” Mother asked tentatively.

“No, it is true I like the company of women. I just don’t… It isn’t… I told you it was only when I spent leisure time in a feminine body that I realized I’d missed something in my sexual education,” Loki hedged.

“Who was he?” Odin growled, and Loki was certain whatever name popped out of his mouth would make the axeman busy within the hour.

“Loki Odinsson,” he kept to the horror of the truth instead. He would never use a body-double for such a thing again, he wasn’t that deranged, but the extremely brief first attempt was informative. He wasn’t a small man, and that had caused such instant regret once he’d been on the other end that he thought the penance he paid over the following week was well earned. He’d never considered there was such a thing as too big. Father’s brow creased in confusion. “I was alone, it was one of the best experiences of my life, and I was female. I don’t actually like this body much, when it comes to that.”

“You… what?”

“I don’t like this body as much as my other one,” Loki explained carefully, unsure of who he was telling. He’d barely let himself think in this direction, and he was hardly certain anything he was saying wasn’t just lies meant to cause his father some measure of torment to match his own pain.

“You like women…” Odin responded, as if the two concepts wouldn’t fit together.

“For company,” Loki made clear. “I… I enjoy myself more when I am one, I think. It isn’t like I have much experience to draw conclusions from. I don’t know how well I’d like the intimate company of a man while in that shape, either. The relationship I had with the midgardian was more transactional than anything else, and as I said before he would have been most displeased if I’d come to him in a dress.”

“You want to try,” Mother stated, sounding shocked. “Is that a new felling or?”

“I’d only recently realized how… how much greener the grass is on the other side of the fence.” Loki found himself unable to be as graphic while he was turned to look at her.

“And on this side?” she asked, gesturing at his currently male body.

“The color of autumn leaves,” he admitted. “My body knows what it should do, and it isn’t bad. I don’t dislike it and it isn’t a chore, but I’m not terribly thrilled at the end. It’s a bit boring, usually. Unfinished might be a better word.”

“Don’t bother with Lady Sif,” Odin said with finally. Loki looked at him, unsure why he felt a spark of hope. “Keep to yourself a little while. You are in no state to fling yourself at someone well-suited to a long term relationship.”

“I agree,” Mother chimed in. “You need to take care of yourself. Like I said before, focus on things you enjoy. That will put the unpleasant things out of mind.”

“That only works until I am exhausted,” Loki complained.

“You don’t have to keep busy every second of the day. I know you find joy in less strenuous things,” Mother assured. “You are just trying too hard.”

“Yes,” Odin was nodding along. “You are so worried over this that you can’t properly enjoy yourself. Have fun at the festival, enjoy your hunt for the sake of old men who can’t.” Loki nodded obediently.


	3. Not Lying and Making Allies of Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two consecutive scenes from the original draft. They will need to be completely re-written to fit the new timeline, but for people wondering where "Another Turn of the Wheel" is headed this can give you a good feel for how I originally outlined the story.
> 
> Warning: Contains gratuitous Star Wars fangirling, some distinctly OOC moments, and the very awesome Darcy Lewis.

**_Not Lying to Brother_ **

_Do not lie to brother._ Be kind _. Do not lie._

Loki slipped through the hidden paths to visit his brother, mind spinning. He had to speak to Thor about what had happened, but he could not lie. The letter had made that clear. What was he to say, then? Was he to tell Thor all, or just some of the truth? As he slipped through the worlds he had a moment of vertigo, as if he was again falling from the tower. He cast a clumsy, broken sort of shielding over himself. It would blur and twist Heimdall's sight rather than block it properly. He would ask when he got back if the spell he cast was similar to what the Jotnar used, and claim research. In the meantime, while suspicious, it would give him some privacy.

His mind was still chasing itself in circles when he reached the glass doors of the human research facility. It was dark - dawn had not yet come to this part of Midgard. He circled around to where they slept. The portable shelters were shabby, but Loki had seen the many research instruments that had been stolen. No matter that he couldn't immediately identify them or their purpose, he knew from his own pursuits that such things required a large amount of money. Likely it was not that these mortals were poor, but that they had allocated their resources to the furthering of knowledge rather than their own comfort.

He really didn't see how Thor fit into this group.

The King had duties, and Loki had duties. As the ruler of Asgard he needed to be at court again today, and so help him if Sif and the Warriors Three test his patience again. He also had to meet with the council again for long hours about matters large and small. That meant he had to deal with his familial duties whenever he could rather than whenever he pleased. He'd thought about coming last night, but ended up watching Thor's idiocy until he could take no more. How Thor thought that fighting off legitimate soldiers doing their duty would help his cause Loki couldn't fathom. That he'd gone off drinking after was so predictable it hurt to think about. The soldiers, and they were more spies than warriors from what Loki could see, were watching the group closely.

All this lead to Loki knocking on the door of the shabby dwelling in the pre-dawn. He appeared to be wearing a fine button-down emerald shirt and lightweight black slacks under a jacket coat and scarf, but he actually wore his lightest summer tunic and pants. This was a desert after all, and Loki finally knew why heat bothered him so much. It was odd that the night air chilled him. Was he so good of a liar that he could fool his very body into feeling a chill more mild than the warmest day on Jotunheim?

"What? Who's there?" a hungover man asked as he opened the door. Loki asked after Thor, pretending not to know exactly where he was sleeping under the stars with the woman. He indicated an urgent message and the elder roused the apprentice. Then the apprentice girl scrambled to dress while the man stumbled over to where Thor and Jane slept.

"Brother? What is wrong, to bring you here before dawn? Are you well?" Thor asked upon seeing him. His face was open, glad to see him and yet worried. Some traces of hangover pounded at Thor, as well, but the worry seemed more important to Thor. "You were ill when I saw you last."

"You noticed?" Loki asked, because he didn't actually want to do this at all and if he could stall he would. He'd run out the clock and have only said a few things - but his mother's life hung in the balance somehow and so he couldn't. _Be kind. Do not lie._

"Not as quickly as I should have. I was fooled by the part you played for King Laufey, but I noticed you were leaning on Sif. I know you would not accept her aid unless you were truly ill," Thor practically gushed, reaching out to clasp Loki's upper arm. It was a delicate touch, fearful of opening wounds. _How can he bare to touch the thing I am?_

"Not someone I would hang on given a choice, no," Loki admitted. Do not lie. "I was… I was in horrific pain for some time."

"Was it…" Thor started.

"Shall we have this conversation in comfort, perhaps?" Loki spat.

"I think Erik is putting some coffee on," Jane said. "You can talk while we make breakfast." Agitated, Loki nodded assent and the once-brothers followed her into the glass building. Loki debated how much power to display, and then made a show of working a spell of enforced silence into the many windows. The watchers could see, but they would not hear.

"Is that not a bit paranoid, brother?" Thor asked while the three humans stared at the flickering green and gold patterns that settled into the edges of the glass before fading. "It is early enough, and we would see anyone listening at the door."

"You do not imagine that the soldiers you attacked last night are not watching you," Loki huffed. "Even you are not that much of an oaf."

"I did not think they would have magic to watch us with," Thor admitted. "I saw no sorceresses among them."

"Not every culture believes such arts to be womanly. There are more men employed in such pursuits than women in this land, and they use their own ways. That they are not similar to what we are used to doesn't mean they don't work," Loki lectured.

"Wait, so on Asgard all the spies are women?" the apprentice asked.

"What is your name?" Loki asked. He shouldn't. He should ignore them as if they are Thor's pets, or potted plants. If he knows they are thinking creatures it will be harder to do this, and he is still stalling.

"I'm Darcy Lewis," she replied promptly.

"Pleased to meet you, I am Loki," he greeted with a little bow.

"Oh, I'm just an intern. You know, fetching things and making copies…."

"Once I was but a novice of my arts, fetching books and studying the works of my betters," Loki let his voice flow into a soothing tone. She was a child, and he always did well with children. "I have my mastery in several fields now, as you will if you continue to work for it."

"I can see why the old stories called you silver-tongue," Erik chuckled. Loki's eyes snapped to the clearly hungover man. "You define polite." Oh, a compliment. "I'm Erik Selvig."

"A researcher in an area I have some knowledge of and great interest in, along with Jane Foster," Loki described.

"Ah, so that's why he likes you!" Thor smiled. "There is nothing my brother loves more than study."

"Are you here about my research, then?" Jane asked.

"Tangentially. It is, more of a family matter," Loki admitted. _I can't stall forever. I have to tell him and go. I have to tell him the truth._ Panic swirled him Loki's gut. He didn't do truth well. Not truth like this, naked and raw and brutal.

"You are ill," Thor sounded grieved. The bigger man guided Loki to a chair at a table near the kitchenette. Loki let him. The humans gave them some space, starting to cook and brew something that smelled wonderful. "I can see it in your eyes, no matter whatever glamor you wear to mask the symptoms."

"There is an injunction against any citizen of Asgard speaking the truth openly on this matter," Loki said, except that wasn't what he'd meant to say. He'd meant to jump head-first into this awful conversation by speaking the worst of it: I am a Jotun. The shock of it would have turned it into a jest, something Thor would never take seriously. Something Loki could say, with false levity, and let Thor think on for a time before confronting. Something Loki could leave behind as a puzzle for the more thoughtful creatures in the room to talk to Thor about when Loki was far away.

"Truly?" Thor breathed.

"Let me try that more delicately," Loki rallied. "There is an injunction… damn it all." He slammed back into the chair, tipping it briefly onto two legs. "I can't believe _I_ cannot speak of this, when it is myself I speak of! Mother was able to dance around this, but I had already guessed at most of it. You have never seen it!"

"I am not unintelligent, brother," Thor chided, "and I would not have you court treason for my sake."

"Yes, yes, this is all for your sake. It's all about you," Loki spat, panicked. If he had to go through this deliberately and delicately he'd lose what little was left of his sanity. "It cannot possibly be about the illness I bear that you spoke of not a moment ago!"

"Take the glamor off, then, and let me see how you are. If I can see with my own eyes what injury you sustained then you need not break any oath," Thor suggested. Dear Norns the fool thought he was being helpful. _Show him?!? I'd rather die than wear that skin!_

"I am sick, not injured," Loki snapped, breathing harder in outrage. He let none of it reach his face, but he couldn't hold to the forced calm completely. "Sick in many subtle ways." Loki spun his thoughts around. If not this, then what truth is he meant to say to Thor?

"A sickness father has forbidden you to speak of," Thor muttered. "A shame, then?"

"I threw myself off the north tower night before last," Loki declared, perhaps a touch too loudly. He'd been certain he'd have been forced to recite the injunction, but there it was. A horrible truth, said plainly, that had everything to do with his tainted blood. So, there was a weakness to the injunction that could be exploited.

"What? Brother, why?" Thor gasped, standing to grab at Loki. He pawed at the smaller man, checking him for injuries. The touch dispelled the illusion of his clothing and made the mask over his face evaporate. Loki's eyes became sunken; his complexion ashen. "Loki." Thor filled his name with a deep despair.

"I tried to tell you that part first," Loki sighed. "Please stop manhandling me. I will not suddenly break into pieces if you let go. I was caught, obviously." Thor relented, but pulled his chair closer. Darcy came over with several mugs.

"Thor said you don't have coffee in Asgard," she explained rapidly. Jane said something in the background about giving them privacy, but the apprentice kept going. "You look like an Archie after final exams, and most of them would drop dead without coffee. Not that I'm making light of it, or anything. I just, this helps. It helps a lot, to talk and have coffee." There was a surety in her voice that spoke of experience. Loki decided that being compared to an aspiring master of some exhausting knowledge was a compliment and allowed her to fuss. He let his body language speak his interest, as she hadn't taken a breath.

"Thank you, Lady Darcy," Thor said over her, rude as usual.

"Do you like sweet stuff, or cream, or both?" Darcy kept talking over Thor, too, fully focused on Loki himself. That was rare enough, that Thor would be ignored in favor of Loki, that he raised his opinion of the girl from young student to competent woman.

"Both," Loki admitted. Darcy started then showed him how she made her own coffee with lots of sugar and cream.

"It is like a bespoke potion," Thor explained, "you must mix in the last ingredients yourself for the best result." This Loki did, sipping it after adding cream and twice the sugar Thor used. Then he decided Darcy was the wiser and matched her two heaping spoons of sugar. That was better, if perhaps now a bit too sweet.

"You'd like lattes. They're fancier, and sweeter than regular brewed coffee," she proclaimed. "I'll just go make myself not be here, then."

_Respect experts. Collect them like precious gems._

"Stay," Loki murmured over the top of his cup.

"You sure?" Darcy asked.

"Your expertise is appreciated, and you are not bound by the injunction," Loki assured. "You can say things we can't. In any case, it is unlikely any of you will be gossiping about this to the courts in Asgard."

"We'll keep your secrets," Jane declared firmly from where she was cooking. Erik nodded and raised his steaming cup to them.

"I will try and explain, as I can, by leading you to the truth you can't see," Loki explained as sincerely as he could while hating being so exposed. "If you help with this, I will be in your debt."

"A debt owed by the God of Mischief," Erik sighed with some reverence. "If I didn't see you lighting up the place with magic a minute ago… The simple fact is, we can't tell anyone about this without being hauled off as insane, even if we were rude enough to talk about something like this in the first place."

"Yeah," Darcy brightened, "talk therapy is like, a thing here. I don't know what it's like where you're from, but we don't do that. Well, nice people don't do that, and we're the good guys here. There are even laws about it. Admitting something like what you just said out loud is a Big Deal, with capital letters." Loki nodded and held up a hand to signal he understood the cultural taboo against such gossip. That was quite useful, actually. Maybe his future self did know what he was doing when he insisted on this madness.

"When was I born?" Loki asked.

"December," Thor answered blankly.

"No, no… What was happening?" he prodded.

"It was just before Victory Day. The war with Jotunheim was ending," Thor said, still blank.

"What do you remember?" Loki asked, a hint of exasperation coloring his voice. If Thor could say something Loki could latch onto, or better yet smack himself against the injunction, this might not be torturous.

"Of your birth? I was young myself," Thor scoffed.

"Not so young to not remember any of it," Loki pushed.

"Mother and I were in Alfheim hiding," Thor was speaking slowly, but suddenly picked up pace. "I woke from a nap, I remember, and there was a basket - what I thought was a basket, at least - hanging from the ceiling in the sitting room. It hadn't been there before, and I thought it had a toy in it." Thor smiled, reaching over to where Loki's left hand rested on the table. "It was better, but forgive me for not thinking so at the time. As soon as I tipped the basket to look inside there was this piercing wail, and I jumped back from it. Mother rushed in, with Father behind her, and they told me who you were."

"Mother and you were in Alfheim," Loki repeated back.

"Yes."

"Mother and you were in Alfheim," he said again, with emphasis.

"Yes, Father was leading the war. I hadn't seen him in ages and was excited he was back with us," Thor smiled, still not getting it.

"Holy shit," Darcy said. "You didn't know until now? They didn't tell you? Fuck. Aren't you, like, thousands of years old?"

"I am one thousand and forty-seven," Loki supplied, amused by her language on his behalf. "Or to put it in terms you can better understand." Loki summoned some parchment and a pen from his hiding place and started sketching out an equation. "Seventeen?" He questioned his own work and checked it again, troubled by the inherent inaccuracy of squishing time down that far. "Thor is twenty and I am seventeen. Of course, we do not stay infantile for centuries, but we do grow slower than a mortal throughout our small years. When we come of age we have finished growing taller, but are still childish for some time thereafter. It isn't as clear as a simple ratio of fifty-four years to one," Erik was nodding as he looked over the calculations. "Our coming of age would have been… at the mental equivalent of thirteen, at which point we looked much like we do now. The aging process starts up again when we are finished with our youth and become full adults, a milestone Thor has just reached. Mental maturity does follow a simple ratio more closely than our physical growth, at least as far as I understand the development of your people."

 _"I_ looked as I do now at the age of seven hundred and seventy-five. _You_ did not reach your full height before you came of age. You were head and shoulders shorter than I for another century," Thor laughed, still in good spirits from good memories and not seeing the point at all.

"I am unlike you in many ways," Loki sighed.

"Thor, he's not your full brother," Jane cut in.

"What?"

"Dude, your dad wasn't there to get your mom pregnant," Darcy explained less politely. "Do you remember her getting all big and round and complaining about her back all the time? Damn, I mean, I'm adopted. My parents can't have kids, they told me when I was, like, six and asking where babies come from." Loki did the math absently, circling the equivalent age for Thor to see, but he wasn't paying attention. Thor's focus was inward, looking at his memories.

"She adores you," Thor said after a moment. "Mother has always doted after you."

"Father has always favored you," Loki retorted.

"He betrayed her, and brought you home from war. Or else…" Thor said in a broken whisper.

"I'll never hear a word against my Mother from anyone that isn't true without fighting it, so you will apologize for the defamation of her character before I am forced to punch you," Loki interrupted flippantly. "She has always been and always will be the finest wife and mother in all of Asgard."

"I mean no insult to Mother. She will always have my love," Thor soothed.

"Try again. Father brought back the Casket of Ancient Winters with him. He is so proud of his war trophies. He keeps them _so close at hand_ ," Loki mocked, his voice lilting. "Stolen relics from conquered lands."

"No, brother, he couldn't have… have done something so base as to rape and then…" Thor looked sick.

"Mother said they are a people made barbaric by starvation, and not by any inherent malice," Loki mechanically regurgitated. "She made me repeat that until I didn't sound like I was lying, then had me say it again the same number of times because I'm good at not sounding like I'm lying and she wanted me to be sure I understood what she was making me repeat."

"The Jotuns are a people made barbaric by starvation, and not by any inherent malice," Thor repeated. "How many times for you?"

"I didn't sleep that night more than an hour," Loki admitted, the truth hurting his pride horribly. "She was counting, I was not."

Thor started reciting the litany, first sounding unsure and disturbed. Loki corrected his grammar, to say Jotnar instead of Jotuns. Thor continued dutifully with the correction and moved on to sadness, then determination. He kept his words slow, actually listening to them, which was better than what Loki had managed in his panic. The humans had a brief discussion, where Erik explained what a Jotun was. There was a comparison to a local civil war made, a mention of racism, and that somehow seemed to settle things very strongly in Loki's favor. Jane started serving breakfast, taking the seat on the other side of Thor. Darcy scooted around to be next to Loki and Erik took the far side of the table, all having given him some small sign of support. Darcy refilled his coffee, and gave him a brief hug after. He couldn't help but feel touched. She knew some of what he was, and Erik knew it even better as he seemed to know the story of the war with Jotunheim, and yet they accepted him instantly. Loki stopped Thor at fifty repetitions, even though the words were still forced.

"There is more to it than that, Thor," Loki sighed.

"There is more?" he wondered, "I would think that alone would be enough of a shock, given that you were prone to such thoughts before." That got Loki's attention.

"What do you mean, prone to such thoughts?"

"I am not blind, brother. I can still call you my brother, without hesitation," Thor assured, pointing the fact out to himself as much as to Loki. A warmth started to replace the dread and fear in him. Perhaps being forced to do this was the best path. "It was years ago, when I found you and Mother in the garden weeping. I was disturbed. She tried to distract us with talk of a ball, and you skittered off quickly enough to inform your beloved, but I was concerned. I asked after her health and yours, insistently. She eventually said you always came to her on Sundays to talk or be distracted by her, because a dangerous shadow sometimes fell over your thoughts. She asked me to help guard you from it."

"I see," Loki said, all traces of emotion carefully hidden. He wanted to ask if Thor saw why he felt such things, but that was something for later. The sun was up, now, and soon Loki would be looked for. "King Laufey accused father of two things, when we met him. What were they?"

"He said Father was a murderer and a thief," Thor growled.

"He is only the second thing," Loki said clearly. "Odin is a thief."

"He took what was his by right of conquest," Thor argued.

"King Laufey thinks Odin is a murderer and a thief, but he is only a thief."

"Prince Loki Laufeysson of Jotunheim," Erik supplied, quietly but with as much respect as he could bring to bear. It didn't matter. The man could have been on his knees pouring out a king's ransom at Loki's feet and he wouldn't accept those words.

"Do not call me that," Loki hissed, stabbing a summoned dagger into the table almost without thought. "I am of Asgard." He huffed and added, "It would be Laufeyjarson, anyway."

"Loki," Thor sounded utterly lost. "No, Loki, no.. no. You aren't blue. Your eyes are green."

"I am a changeling, and my body instinctively looks to protect itself from extremes when it can, so long as it knows the shape it needs. I have always been discouraged to practice those skills. Isn't that odd, Thor, with all my magical talents? Why would I have been guided to illusions - such a feminine art - when I could factually change myself into another creature? Is that not the better magic, more masculine, and an inherent one that could have made my study of other things much faster had it already been mastered?" Loki could feel the wound in his soul bleeding, a wide chasm of pain opening up inside him. He kept his voice conversational, detached from the unthinkable pain.

"That Jotun touched you, and it didn't give you frostbite as it did Volstagg. I thought you saved yourself with magic, and I thought that you looked so ill after because of it. There is an injunction… Confound it! No!" Thor raged, rattling the table covered in cold eggs and empty coffee cups as he slammed down his fists. "You are my brother. We were raised together. You will not hurt yourself over this again. Don't even think harm on yourself. Mother would be inconsolable, and I would beat you bloody when I joined you in Valhalla."

"So, you're actually blue?" Darcy asked. "Like, only when you get really, really cold, though."

"When I am in danger of freezing to death, and only then, would I entertain such an option. I find the physical appearance of the Jotnar disgusting," Loki spat back, losing his detachment.

"What do they look like?" Jane asked, softly. "I'm assuming it's not that different of a shape, if an infant could change himself."

"It's completely different!" Loki raged, insulted at the very idea. "Jotunheim is a frozen wasteland, nearly devoid of light aside from an aurora and a weak sun that it orbits erratically. The branches of Yggdrasil that support it are weak and dying. It is populated by monsters. The people are marked with ridges in their blue skin and they have soulless red eyes that glow. The tallest æsir is a midget compared to most of them!" Thor had gone quiet and contemplative, a rare thing that had Loki's stomach doing flips. The others were less fazed. Jane muttered something about a clan mentality.

"So, your other birth parent wasn't a Jotun, then?" Darcy asked. "Otherwise, you're kinda short to be a giant. I mean, you're tall for just a regular guy and pretty handsome besides, but if you're supposed to be some kind of monster I can't see it."

"I… I don't know," Loki faltered. The Allfather had simply said he'd been left to die because he was small. Was he a half-breed? The thought was oddly comfortable. He'd gone years thinking only that one of his parents had committed adultery. Perhaps he'd simply worn the idea of being half into his mind as an acceptable situation. "I am, in fact, as tall as I currently seem."

"Oh, oh!" Darcy suddenly bounced in her chair. "Do you know Star Wars? 'Course not. Anyway, he's not in the movies but he's in the books, the good books not the stupid ones. Grand Admiral Thrawn, I mean. Thrawn is this hyper genius tactician who studies art and the psychology of his opponents to win battles, and he wins, like, all the battles he's ever led even when he is retreating. He's technically on the Empire's side, so he's a bad guy, but you find out later that he's actually really noble and believes all the way down to his toes that the Republic is too weak to fight the things that live on the edge of the galaxy. He's right about that, too. He eventually gets stabbed in the back by his own network of spies, but that's because of something the Evil Emperor did that Thrawn really should have fixed as soon as he could. I don't want to ruin the whole thing, just in case you want to read them. It's five books about him, but you'd have to get ahold of the Original Trilogy first to understand them."

"Was there a point to that?" Jane asked.

"Thrawn has red eyes and blue skin, and the only thing you get to know about his people are that they have a really strong military and have been beaten to shit by stuff nobody else has seen, but was way too strong for anyone to beat. Head canon updated, the Chiss people are the Jotnar," Darcy declared with a satisfaction that bewildered everyone else at the table. Loki ran the quickly babbled words back through his mind like a cypher.

"The Chiss people in this story are also blue with red eyes," he said, but inflection made it a question.

"Yeah, and he was tall but not giant sized. Noble and really smart."

"I thank you for the recommendation. I think I will obtain The Original Trilogy of the tale of Star Wars, and the five books on Grand Admiral Thrawn."

"They were written by Zahn, that's with a 'Z' and an 'H.' Any good bookstore should have them." Loki revised his opinion of the girl again. Anyone that passionate about books and observant about the details of where myth and fact can blur was useful.

"You are certainly similar to this Admiral," Thor spoke with a tense voice, "artistic, deadly in battle, and intelligent. I will not say this doesn't pain me to know. I cannot say I understand why this was kept from us. When I think of some of the things I said when we were boys, and you… Loki, you had nightmares about the ice and snow. You had them for years! I swore I'd protect you by killing all the giants when I was king," Thor looked fully sick, and Loki didn't feel much better. "I disgust myself."

"I still…" Loki started, but pulled back. He'd had enough honesty and it was dangerous. He'd been building momentum and the very thought of dissembling had fled him for a moment, but the confession of his ongoing nightmares was a step too far. "I still have more to say. There is no injunction on it. A somewhat lighter topic."

"I would hope the worst of it had passed," Thor scoffed. "More troubling news would be too much."

"It isn't exactly good news. Odin has been very tired of late, as I'm sure you have noticed," Loki began.

"I had," Thor admitted, fidgeting uncomfortably. "It was assumed that after my coronation he would go into the Odinsleep and recover his strength."

"He should have been able to do it before, if you had attended the council meetings and court sessions as you ought," Loki couldn't help but nag to get some of his own back after so much given. Thor fidgeted a bit more.

"You were always better at that than I," Thor mumbled, poking his eggs.

"You have been exiled, for the crime of inciting war. There was a report from Jotunheim making it official. There were over a hundred injured and nearly seventy dead, not to mention the damage to property from the collapse you caused," Loki continued to nag, happy to push the painful parts of it all aside.

"A collapse that sent you suddenly falling from my view, and I believed I had killed my brother until that Jotun appeared cradling your broken body," Thor grumbled, then brightened slightly. "The look on his face when you went from dead weight to suddenly flipping over to where Father stood." Thor shook his head. "That was an excellent trick."

"It was no trick, Thor, I had to ration my strength," Loki said quietly, finally eating a bite of egg. "I was both ill and injured, as you saw, and the rest was bravado."

"You tried to stop me. You tried to have me rethink things, and to leave in peace, and I shouted at you," Thor pouted.

"I also may have informed a guard of your intentions, and was quite cross with him for being so damned slow. We should have been intercepted at the Bifrost. We should never have set foot there," Loki complained. "I even tried to stall at the gate, but that plan was thwarted."

"If father must sleep soon, then… Asgard will be in good hands while he does," Thor said cautiously. Loki stiffened, unbelieving. "You must guard against the darkness that plagues you, brother. For the sake of the realm as well as your family, but you are wiser than I in many ways. I should have listened to you, and I will not make that mistake again if I am given the chance."

"Father is already asleep, Thor," Loki whispered. "I am king."

"You… you are?"

"Yes," Loki confirmed. Darcy congratulated him, or he thought that is what she meant, and there were general sounds of shock from the other humans.

"You came to test me?" Thor asked with such hope, and Loki ruthlessly wanted to smash it.

"I came with the idea in my mind that I would not once in this conversation lie to you. It has been an ordeal," Loki drawled. "I owe you that much." _I owe Mother that much._

"Can you not bring me home? I know I can not rule as I am, but I would like to be there."

"You are here for some purpose; according to Mother you can earn your way back. As to how, I believe that is part of the test and I am not privy to the specifics," Loki shrugged. "I am in this instance not inclined to cheat."

"Well, duh, you lose the throne when he passes his test," Darcy laughed.

"There are more important things than who sits on the throne," Thor scoffed. "If I were there I would be constantly consulting with Loki. I would hope the opposite would also be true, if Father chooses him to…" Loki interrupted Thor's cute little speech with hysterical laughter.

"This is an anomaly caused by poor timing. What I am, crowned King of Asgard permanently?" Loki gasped between fits, "In what twisted reality is Odin ever going to do such a thing? It is a political plot, Thor. Think of the bloodlines, think of the lines of succession of _other realms_. What fate do I have written for me with the very blood in my veins? What prophetic nightmare have I endured for centuries?"

"Brother, he would not," Thor started.

"Would he not? 'Bring about a permanent peace,' and that's a quote from his very lips when he was confessing to me what he had done," Loki spit venom in his words.

"Of all you have told me, this… this should not be the hardest thing, but it is. It feels false to me," Thor said. "I do not doubt that you believe it, brother. I just… there must be some other meaning."

"Has he not said that were both born to be kings on many occasions?" Loki asked. "Asgard has but one throne."

"I had always thought that you would be my adviser. When I did think of the future beyond Father's life, it was commanding Asgard's armies while you worked with the people. I think of how it is when I walk through the market with you, and the merchants are all happy to see you and you know all their names…" Thor trailed off.

"That is because I don't send servants to purchase my things. They know seeing me means they make money," Loki waved the comment off.

"You know their whole lives, or so it seems. You ask after their daughters and sons by name, or else if they have fully recovered from some injury or slight. I could never keep so much information straight in my head, and never mind how the children flock to you."

"They flock to me to play the fool and conjure all manner of brightly colored things to play with, or else to sing or hear tales told."

"You do it, gladly."

"I didn't say I didn't, but that does not run a country."

"No, brother, I am not talking about that anymore. You are… what you are, but you spend your free time playing with common children. I see now why I was so easily able to call you brother knowing what I now do. You are no monster, you are Loki. You have always been Loki, and you always will."

"Does it? Does it change nothing?" Loki demanded, the hysteria clawing at him again.

"Of course not," Jane soothed. Perhaps Thor liked her because her tone of voice was so like Frigga's. "Humans fought for centuries over the color of someone's skin, inhibiting the progress of science and culture, and we only started progressing rapidly the way we are now when we realized the truth that it doesn't matter and put those thoughts behind us."

"Yeah, you've got the same soul you've always had," Darcy pointed out.

"You are a trickster, and a fool for children, and a powerfully dangerous force when crossed according to the stories of my youth and this conversation, which I am really hoping isn't a product of my hangover," Erik assured. Loki stared at his plate of uneaten food, now completely inedible by his standards, for a long time. The others remembered that they were supposed to be eating and let him think in silence for a time.

"Thank you," he whispered, and pulled out of his hiding place the leftovers of his untouched meals to replace the sad soggy eggs that had gone cold. As usual, the preservative properties of his hiding place provided the meals back to him as fresh and hot as they were when he vanished them.

\----------------------

**_Making Allies of Enemies_ **

"Perhaps it is that the most horrible thing is the one I reject hardest," Thor theorized after a few minutes of eating. "If Father sent you to that dark and frozen place, I think I might do something worth being banished again. I am sure Mother would feel the same."

"I can only take so much coddling in a morning," Loki sighed, then straightened and pulled his mask back on. He'd completed his task, and would have to steal back into Asgard. He would need his pride fully recovered first. "I must now broker peace with Jotunheim, or else begin the war with them, and the other realms are unhappy with us for provoking this. I may be loved by the common people, but do not forget how often an assassin has come for me. I have ordered the Bifrost closed so that the hidden paths can be better guarded."

"Does the Bifrost interfere with those paths? I apologize, but I have never been able to understand you when you talk of them," Thor asked in open curiosity.

"All of Jane's research is made possible by the fact that the Bifrost is very, how to put this, loud," Loki explained. "It's light, heat, and roaring action makes the smaller and darker paths harder to see. I have posted guards at the paths I know."

"Then Asgard is once again safe from unannounced attack," Thor bragged.

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, brother, but Yggdrasil's branches are many and constantly in motion. I cannot claim to know a third of the paths that lead into Asgard, let alone any other realm…" a sudden loud banging interrupted his false modesty.

"Found you!" came a cheerful cry. Loki didn't even have to look.

"They are your friends, and never have been mine, and the Bifrost is supposed to be _closed_ so we can better see any intruders trying to slip in undetected," Loki hissed poison at his brother.

"Hey, as far as I'm concerned you've been here long enough to explain why you are king," Darcy said. "That's like ten minutes." Loki considered kissing the little mortal just to give her the thrill.

"I've got a hangover," Erik said. "Haven't heard a word over the pounding in my skull."

"I want my research back," Jane said, and he pierced her with a glare.

"Jane, you cannot tarnish your honor so," Thor chastised.

"Don't misunderstand, I wouldn't talk about someone's attempted suicide with people they didn't trust. Loki is the current King, Thor is the Prince when he's at home, and if I want my stuff back I figure the best way to do it is through you two. It's not a threat I'm giving, it's a ransom you are holding," Jane explained with perfect professionalism and logic that calmed Loki more than the other promises.

"I like her," Loki told Thor. "She makes sense."

"I hoped you would, though not for that," Thor chuckled, and rose to open the door to his friends. Loki released the privacy spell so that the door was no longer magically locked, and also let go of the spell shielding him from Heimdall.

"My friends, I am ever glad to see you, but you should not have come," Thor's voice was raised in delight, with only a hint of disapproval.

"We are here to take you home," Fandral's voice scoffed at Thor's rebuke. Loki dissolved his tunic back into his human costume. They hadn't taken any notice of him, or they would have said something. The humans had all stood up and were hovering uncertainly around the table where Loki still sat. He looked over his plate, satisfied that he'd managed to eat twice as much as he'd eaten all of yesterday even if it still wasn't a full meal.

"I can't go home now, I am still mortal," Thor argued.

"Loki has usurped the throne," Hogun explained.

"A master of magic could easily smuggle three Jotuns into Asgard," Volstagg continued, his voice some mockery of conspiracy.

"Jotnar," Thor corrected, "not Jotuns, and my brother is no usurper." Loki stuffed a roll in his mouth. They were convinced of his guilt, he was actually guilty in one small way, and he was not permitted to lie to his brother for a week. Plugging his mouth was the safest option.

"It is true, Thor. We don't know what he has done to Odin, but when we went to the throne room yesterday to ask for your return Loki was there," it was Sif, gushing and likely throwing herself at Thor. Really, Loki wondered that he'd ever felt attraction for such a woman. Through the reflection on one of the mugs, Loki was able to bounce his magic off the windows to see clearly behind himself. Yes, she was leaning in toward Thor in a way that was ruined by how thoroughly her armor covered her cleavage.

"And what did my brother say, when you accused him of this?" Thor turned to look back at the table where the humans were blocking Loki from view. Such strange loyalty, these mortals expressed. If he didn't know better he'd think they were trying to protect some fragile child.

"He claimed the All-father had fallen into the Odinsleep and the queen would not leave Odin's side," Sif huffed.

"He refused to end your banishment with some paltry excuse that because of the war he could not have his first command undo the last command of Odin," Fandral explained with a more level head.

"He is right," Thor declared. "My actions were dishonorable and my temporary banishment just."

"Temporary?" Volstagg asked, and Loki took his cue to stand and revel himself.

"Did I not ask you to wait for my word?" Loki scolded. "I had thought at least _you_ understood me, Fandral, even as Volstagg openly mocked his king."

"Loki!" the idiot warriors gasped in shock, anger creasing their faces and their hands flying to their weapons.

"Am I such a monster, that you react to seeing me so?" Loki asked.

"That is enough, all of you," Thor rebuked, walking to Loki and grabbing his brother tightly at his collarbone, as was his habit. The mortal clothing made Loki look smaller and thinner than usual, and without the stiff leather of his normal clothing the grip was uncomfortably tight. "I know you will be a good king. I will do my utmost to restore myself to power, that I may help fight this war with you."

"I wish you luck, brother. I would tell you more, but I honestly do not know what father was thinking when he enchanted your hammer. As to what it would take to move it, I can only guess and admit that I was unable to lift it myself."

"Careful, Thor, you know his tricks," Volstagg spat. "He would lead you astray to keep the throne for himself!"

"My brother," Thor spoke clearly, "is next in the line of succession, and rightful king. While he may be sometimes less than sincere, I never doubt that he loves me." Loki let a small smile cross his face at the echo of recent words.

"As I do not doubt you," Loki responded as casually as he could without sounding false. "Now give us a kiss." Thor roared in laughter at the little joke, and it gave Loki the fuel he needed to get back into motion.

"One day I'm going to embarrass you horribly for that old joke," Thor boomed with a wink. Loki sincerely wished they would have time for it to become an old joke as well.

"Mother would be horrified. Now, I must return to Asgard. The use of the Bifrost may have given the Jotnar an opening to attack us, or worse," Loki thought aloud.

"What tall tale is he spinning now?" Sif asked.

"I have long known that Loki can use alternate pathways to travel the realms," Thor explained as if such was perfectly obvious.

"The light of the Bifrost, when it is active, makes monitoring those secret pathways nearly impossible," Loki continued, in case his brother said something awkward. "It is also possible to see the Bifrost activating from other realms, if you know how to look. You have committed treason by coming here, not because I did not wish you to speak with Thor, but because your travel here makes Asgard vulnerable." Thor nodded in agreement, and Loki shifted his attention to the ceiling. "Heimdall, I know you are listening; you have once again failed in your duty to guard the realm. Worse than that, remember that the last time Jotunheim went to war with Asgard they sought to conquer Midgard first."

Loki saw his words were having little effect on the four warriors, but the humans and Thor were upset enough. Thor grumbled under his breath about how he had forgotten that point, and turned to apologize to the humans. The two women were looking at Erik, who was looking a little faint.

"That… that caused a natural disaster that killed about a third of everyone on the planet. Drought, famine, the breakdown of the weather systems, and that's just from the sudden dip in Earth's average temperature…" Erik wheezed, looking at Loki to tell him he was wrong. Loki had no such comfort to offer. "Most climate scientists don't believe it was caused by some ancient magic casket, and assume some sort of natural disaster or comet impact, but the dates fit."

"As punishment for your treason," Loki proclaimed, pulling himself up to his full height.

"What?" Hogun interrupted.

"How dare you!" Sif raged.

"You expect us to believe…" Volstagg started. Loki silenced them all with a slash of his hand and a vibrant golden spell. They grabbed at their necks in shock.

"As punishment for your treason, you will remain here on Midgard in defense of _this_ realm in case the Jotnar attack it. Should they not attack, you will of course miss the glory of battle completely," Loki finished. He gave the spell of silence a little more power than necessary, wanting them to feel the gentle pressure on their throats for a moment. "You may return when Thor does, as you clearly have no intention of keeping your oaths and only have loyalty to him rather than to the realm you are sworn to protect with your lives. You rob Asgard of four of her strongest and fiercest warriors in her time of great need, and if you cannot convince your king you feel shame from that, then you will remain stripped of your rank and titles even after you return."

"We will be watchful, brother," Thor assured. Loki walked swiftly out the door, releasing the spell of silence only after he'd turned back toward where the Bifrost was last aimed. With his magic he kept an ear on the argument that began the second he'd allowed the four warriors to speak again. Thor was livid that his friends doubted his judgment so thoroughly, the humans were insulted that the four visitors paid them no mind, and the warriors still believed Loki had stolen the throne.

The area where the Bifrost was aimed was not abandoned. Loki used his travel magic to make line of sight jumps once he had cleared the town's border, his habitual notice-me-not charm making him uninteresting to the common folk. The spies that were more alert in their watchfulness saw him clearly, but he wasn't trying to sneak up on them. The man who had tried to interrogate Thor, who might be the Coluson referenced in the letter, met him as he walked up to the ring of black vehicles.

"Good morning, I am King Loki of Asgard. Can I trust that your people have relayed to you the events in the town, or do I have to repeat myself?" Loki greeted, "I am afraid I am short on time."

"I am Agent Coulson, Agent of Shield. Forgive me for thinking this whole situation is a little hard to believe," the small man, who looked older than Fandral but younger than Volstagg, had a casual stance and easy smile. Loki was well versed in the lies told by such false cheer - this man would divulge no secret and give no hint unless he fully planned to.

"Forgive me for having so little time to prove it to you, Phillip," Loki answered in kind, and he took the slight widening of Agent Coleson's eyes as proof he'd guessed the man's first name correctly. He swapped his button-down shirt for the full royal regalia he was meant to wear while holding court. He really did delight in his formal uniform. "I must return to my people and lead them, hopefully toward peace, but likely to war. If there are preparations to be made on your end, please make them. The known paths between Jotunheim and Midgard would be in the northern latitudes of the continent across the sea to the east, where the myths of my people originate, or else in the nearer mountain range west and north of this location. I would suggest harnessing what you know about the Bifrost and what ability you have to detect its operation in order to find those gaps in the folds of reality, but even I would have trouble finding them quickly unless they are currently in use."

"We have ways of knowing when something is on our planet that shouldn't be," Coulson informed him, just as blandly. "I'm authorized to thank you for the warning, on behalf of the citizens of Earth."

"Do not thank me yet. The Jotnar are a starving, desperate people who have just been humiliated by a careless violation of their borders. They stand twice my height, on average," Loki warned, then turned to slip through the cracks left by the Bifrost, landing directly in front of Heimdall.

"My king," the huge Vanir greeted.

"I should have you relieved of duty," Loki sharply informed him. "I would hear you speak, first." He had to be the perfect son of Asgard and removing the best watchman the realm had was not part of that image. He had to discard his first instinct, to prove his power by cutting down those who dared question him, and move on to a harder goal: bending his enemies into allies as the letter suggested.

"I share the suspicion of the Warriors Three. I know you can walk the worlds without the Bifrost. When the Warriors Three and Sif came to me I had already seen that you had cloaked yourself from view while visiting Thor, and deliberately left my post so that they might use the Bifrost in my absence," the watchman spoke evenly, clear statements of emotionless fact. "I did not know the use of the Bifrost affected other paths." This was said with some curiosity, bordering on suspicion.

"It can cut through them, creating temporary shortcuts such as what I just used. It will take perhaps another hour to close. In the meantime, any looking to enter Asgard can use that crack to make their way more easily into this realm, not necessarily landing themselves directly at your feet, and the light cast by the crack blinds me to such movements," Loki put all the venom and frustration he'd felt over the last few days into his words.

"You watch the hidden paths?" Heimdall asked in disbelief.

"Someone must, and your sight is not of the correct type," Loki accused, shouting. He took a deep breath, making his struggle for calm obvious. "What you can see, I can only imagine, but the same is true of the reverse. Unfortunately, my version of such sight is not always active, it is not a passive ability as yours is and drains me quickly. Also, I can be easily blinded by many other means. I am _not_ pleased to see the experimental shield I wove about myself hid me from your view. If you cannot trust my words, can you trust my desire to protect the realm? Can we come to a place of mutual respect, and work together for that?" Loki let exasperation fill him, weaving the twisted truth into a reality.

"You are my king. You have my respect, and my loyalty," Heimdall promised, dropping down to his knee. "I have committed a grave offense."

"You did the same when Thor sought passage to Jotunheim," Loki conceded. "Did you know I had no intention of winning the argument with you that I tried to start?"

"I saw you inform the guard, and I knew you would want to stall. I meant what I said to Thor, and saw you on your way. I thought even then that you had led the Jotnar into Asgard, either through lack of caution in your experimental travels or directly. Your reluctance to go to Jotunheim appeared to me a sign of guilt rather than caution."

"Do you think I have not thought of that myself? That I do not blame my experiments for these events?" Loki admitted, spitting his self-loathing at the kneeling man. "Any guilt you saw was real."

"I will take whatever punishment you design for me," the watchman spoke, his deep voice ringing with real remorse.

"You can pay penance by ensuring it never happens again," Loki ordered. "Back to your post, the realms are not at peace and Asgard needs your skill."


	4. Frigga Tells Loki What She Knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Frigga, with her character being what it is, would have kept Loki's heritage from him if it ever came up. If ever there was a situation where telling Loki about being adopted might have helped him with his growing pains - and adolescence is a minefield he clearly did not make it through unscathed - then she would have. So, there must have been some really compelling reason why she didn't, right?

Frigga was seated on one of the first benches by the door in the Queen’s Garden. She noticed him instantly and stood, her soft white and yellow dress making her shine radiantly in the sunlight. Loki noticed that she seemed upset and may have been crying recently, though perhaps she had not slept well. The analysis of her expression was reinforced by how she rushed to her son and wrapped him immediately in a hug.  
“Mother, are you well? Has something happened?”  
“Your father and I had a fight,” she confessed quietly, aware that there were servants about. “Walk with me a while.” Loki linked his arm around his mother’s and they walked deep into the garden, to a place where wind chimes filled the air with soft music and high trellises held up flowering vines. When they were sure they would not be overheard his mother spoke again. “I overheard your conversation with Njor. I had no idea you worried over such things, and called on your Father and Thor to discuss it. Thor spoke of last year, when you turned yourself into a woman. Your Father… was outraged that Thor brought it up, and wouldn’t speak on it at first. When Thor told me what you said about proving that you are the same inside no matter what you look like outside, and how your Father reacted, I got upset. I said something he hated to hear even more, and then he sent Thor away and we shouted at each other until I couldn’t take any more. It was a long argument.” Loki had never heard his mother use a mocking tone when speaking of his Father, but she was clearly still quite angry at him.  
“I knew Father would not like what I planned to do, but I thought it would work well to prove my point. They were humiliating me at the time, responding in kind is hardly unfair,” Loki argued. “What did you say to him to make him so upset?”  
“I asked him: When has Loki not done all he could to become what he needed to be?” Frigga’s voice shook with contained emotion.  
“I can hardly see why that would make him angry.” Loki turned the words around in his mind. There was something unsaid there, clearly. The comment that set his mother off was an odd thing as well. He turned to examine the roses, hoping that an air of nonchalance would give her comfort enough to explain.  
“It didn’t make him angry, it hurt him. It’s an old fight, one we have had for many years.”  
“Forgive me if I have a hard time envisioning something your love for him can not forgive.” As curious as he was, he didn’t want to press his mother while she was so upset. He kept his tone light, giving her the opportunity to brush it all aside.  
“King Odin lies about things that he shouldn’t sometimes, and other times he doesn’t speak the proper words to avoid misunderstandings,” Frigga spoke quietly. At least Frigga calmed enough to call him ‘King Odin,’ and not spat ‘your Father.’ Dispassionate was an improvement to openly hostile, Loki mused.  
“I certainly didn’t learn my deceptive talents from you, Mother,” Loki laughed. When his mother didn’t respond he turned away from the flowers to see tears in her eyes.  
“Yes, you did,” she sobbed, “and I hate it.”  
“Mother?” Loki asked, going to her and pulling her into his arms as she wept bitterly. They stood like that a long time, and no soothing words seemed to reach her.  
“You are a good boy, sweetheart, my good boy. There is something from when you were very young. King Odin has forbid me to speak of it,” Frigga gasped when her tears had quieted enough for her to speak.  
“Something that would make me… argr?” Loki asked delicately, hesitant to use the offensive word in front of his mother even in it’s proper context. Frigga reached up to cup his cheek, smiling at him despite all.  
“You are my Loki, and the only one in all the nine realms. I would change nothing about you, my son. You have always had such powerful magic in you, and there should be no shame in it.”  
“You want to tell me, though you cannot?” he asked.  
“I wanted to tell you when you had your Announcement party,” Frigga insisted.  
“That was over two hundred and seventy years ago,” Loki breathed, thinking back to the day he was named ‘Prince Loki’ officially and given a holding to run. That time in his life was so much of a blur in his mind he would need to consult his journals if he wanted any clues - his memory was likely as accurate as the corresponding myths of Midgard without prolonged meditation. “You have held this pain to yourself that long?”  
“Before that I wanted to tell you when you apprenticed. Before that I wanted to tell you when you could understand the difference between men and women. I always wanted you to know because I love you and you are my good little boy.”  
“When I was very young, then,” Loki mused. “Would it help me, if I knew, to combat these rumors?”  
“Not directly. You might… you might find something worth devoting your time to if you knew. Something productive that would bring you glory and prove to all the realm that you are a true man and a good son,” she whispered.  
“A goal, a plan… something to win,” Loki mused aloud, thinking of the odd way the letter that upended his world had been worded. “Yes, a quest. I will go on a quest for glory to stamp out this ugliness.”  
“No, Loki, don’t look for this. I would not have you find out accidentally, and I fear the public should never know the full truth.”  
“What part of this is accidental? I now know that whatever happened to me as a child, you wished me to know it always. You did not lie to me, save out of loyalty to your king and husband. That, I can forgive, and all the more because you tell me this now when I don’t have the slightest idea…” Loki spoke with open honesty, as he rarely did, but that meant that when his mind coughed up a terrible thought his mouth hung open with the slime of it stuck in his throat. “I am a changeling.”  
“Yes,” Frigga carefully replied, her expression guarded.  
“I have never,” Loki started, then licked his lips and looked around himself, twitching in nervousness. “Whenever I thought to hone those talents I was distracted. I was discouraged from their use with warnings of deformation and the insistence that - and I know this is not fully true - that it is a dangerous thing to do before one finishes growing.”  
“There is a greater danger that your talent at changing shape would permanently affect your body somehow when it was practiced in early childhood,” Frigga affirmed, slowly. Loki fidgeted, then paced, then stopped and fiddled with the long tunic he wore. He’d never realized how much it looked like a scandalously short dress, if only he wasn’t wearing a longer duster with it. He tucked it into his leather trousers, irritated at himself.  
“I am not a woman,” Loki spit out at last. “I am not. I have tried it, and not just once, and I can even say it was comfortable. I do, however, think of myself with male pronouns. I am insulted when I am called argr, and would take offense at being called Miss or she.”  
“You are my boy,” Frigga insisted, laughing a little at his distress. “You have never been anything else to me, from the first moment I held you in my arms.” Loki took several calming breaths. The words were soothing, but there was still something unsaid there that he didn’t like. He looked at her, and thought of Thor and Odin and how he just never fit in. He wanted to ask the question ringing in his mind, but he was certain his mother would cry if he did. He chose another, less distasteful way to say he understood than ‘Not while I grew within you?’ He did not want the answer, and he hated the part of his mind that knew it. He pressed his mother in a hug, putting his lips to her ear to whisper.  
“I have black hair,” he rasped as quietly as he could. He hated the tears in his eyes. “Do you think it is the first time I have thought on that fact, when I know in his youth Odin’s hair was as fair as yours?” It was a lie, this was the first time he had entertained the possibility that he was not his father’s blood. “When I am so obviously disappointing and different in every way? You need explain nothing to me, mother. I was born during the war with Jotunheim, and Father fought on the front lines while you were safely secreted away. I love you, as I always have. I know nothing else, and want nothing else.” Frigga shivered in his arms, clutching to him.  
“You are my good boy,” she repeated, and Loki wondered if that was what she was compelled to say when the spell enforcing her loyalty concealed the truth of more dangerous words. She would have chosen them, so they weren’t a lie. They just weren’t the truth she wanted to say.  
“Whoever…” Loki choked. He couldn’t accuse his mother of adultery aloud. Even with her practically confessing it to him, there was the chance that the sin was Odin’s. He might be Odin’s son, or he might be Frigga’s son, but he clearly wasn’t both. His heart twisted in his chest, and he was lying to himself if he thought Odin more connected to him than Frigga, but it wasn’t a clear distinction. It wasn’t anything on his end that made him see a difference between the love of his parents, but wasn’t that all the more damning? He spoke desperately, as much trying to convince himself as anyone, “I am Loki Odinsson, and you are my mother. Whatever else is true of me, I am glad you wanted me to know it. Perhaps when I reach twelve centuries and declare myself a full man you will have permission to tell me all. Perhaps I will have to demand it of the All-father that day, as he will no longer have power over me beyond a man and his king. The only other thing I need know is this: Does Thor know?”  
“No. He never understood. How could he, when he was so young? Besides, Thor has no reason to question anything.”  
Loki and Frigga stayed in the garden for hours, sitting quietly on a bench in the most secluded part of the garden. They didn’t speak much, and simply held each other in a one-armed hug as they watched dark-colored butterflies dance from flower to flower. Loki conjured a few more every so often, until the whole of the garden was full of their delicate black and purple wings.  
“Mother, Loki,” Thor’s voice called from an archway in the flowering vines, “Father sent me to tell you lunch is being served.” His voice was hesitant, and his posture awkward. Loki was certain both he and Frigga had tear stains clearly visible on their faces. It was the work of a moment to erase them with magic, a quick movement of the hand that mother and son did in unison. “I would instead tell servants to bring it to you here, if you like,” Thor offered.  
“We will go to the Hall, Thor,” Mother soothed, all traces of her earlier distress gone. “I have not wept in happiness so much in a long time, and I find I have worked up quite the apatite doing it.” She stood and walked to her older son.  
“You are happy?” Thor asked, unsure. Loki stood up to follow, equally unsure, but schooled his expression to a blank mask.  
“I do not think Loki has said something to bring me such joy since his very first word,” she declared, catching Loki’s hand in hers when he was close enough.  
“What did I say?” Loki asked, his tone feigning disinterest.  
“Mama,” she replied, a little hitch in her voice. Thor tried to ask what this was all about, but the second they moved past the archway Loki felt a privacy spell shatter and Frigga started to babble about the party. She kept up a constant stream of talk about the feasts and the music, not allowing either of her sons to get a word in edgewise. Suddenly, she started bouncing in place, excited beyond what she could contain.  
“That’s it, that is the solution! We’ll have a ball!”  
“What?” Thor and Loki said together.  
“All this feasting and revelry is fine, and it is what you asked for on your name day, but if the celebrations are to continue we should use them to our advantage. We will hold a proper party in the ballroom, with pairs dancing and all the formal games,” Frigga explained, turning to Loki. “You can bring that girl you’ve been spending so much time with, what was her name?”  
“The redhead?” Thor asked, “She is but a…”  
“Not that one, obviously. I meant the one he’s always with in the library.”  
“I don’t know what you mean,” Loki evaded.  
“The one who had that unfortunate accident in the Mage’s garden. You were telling me about it last week, she had to have her hair cut,” Frigga insisted.  
“You have been seeing one of the librarians?” Thor asked, a knowing twinkle in his eye.  
“No, yes, not like that,” Loki blustered. “She is a friend.”  
“A friend you talk about quite often. Last month you had spoken about how complicated her braids were, and how you were certain she used a spell to twist her hair. The month before you noticed her ring had lost a small sapphire and had a replacement cut for her,” Frigga counted off, dramatically raising her fingers as she listed all the times Loki spoke of the blond librarian. When she ran out of fingers she dropped her hands and with them dropped the final piece of damning evidence: “A year ago, or a little less, you had hurt your left hand and she followed you for three days in the library while it healed doing every little thing you needed. As repayment you gave her a pair of intricate gold and jade earrings that she has not been seen without since.”  
Thor was looking smug, Frigga triumphant, and Loki could see no escape. He did as his mother told him to on Sundays. Today, she was telling him he liked Dagny the junior librarian enough to wax poetic about her, and that he would be taking her to the ball his mother was going to throw to quiet the rumors about his masculinity. She was also saying it in front of an open door full of kitchen staff who could not stop gossiping to save their lives, and it might come to that with how his temper was flaring.  
“When?”  
“When did I know you loved her?” Frigga asked cheekily.  
“When are you holding the ball?” Loki bit out. “And I did not say I loved her, I said she was a friend. I have fair few enough of those not to cherish them.”  
“Prince Loki said he cherishes one of the librarians!” Loki heard someone say in a stage whisper from beyond the door. Fuck them all, but it would be useful. He shouldn’t be this upset about such expert manipulation of the rumor mill, but he was. Any moment now Thor would…  
“Little brother, I had no idea! You know, I punched Fandral earlier today. He said that with your silver tongue you could have any woman you pleased, and wasn’t it odd that you rarely did? We have an answer for that, now.” There it was, right on cue, Thor providing the obvious acceptable excuse for Loki’s less than gregarious behavior around the many wenches that filled the palace feasts looking to promote their social status by bedding a prince.  
“Tell Fandral about this and I will ensure I am never an uncle,” Loki hissed.  
“Now boys, no fighting. Really, Loki, you are so observant about everyone other than yourself. Not every man enjoys laying with women he doesn’t care about,” Frigga scolded, and the brothers blushed to hear their mother talk of such things. “We all have our dalliances in youth, but it’s how we learn what we want. Loki has always been a quick study. Why should he take longer to learn this than anything else? Just because you have not yet decided what it is that you want in a woman doesn’t mean you can tease your younger brother for knowing more fully what he is looking for.”  
“Mother, you make it sound as if I am ready to propose,” Loki moaned loudly, and knew he was fueling some powerful rumors now. “I assure you I am not.”  
“Of course not. You haven’t even told her how you feel yet, have you? No, you just leave her gifts adorned with your colors and pretend not to notice when she wears them,” Frigga huffed. “We’ll have the ball Tuesday night, if I can manage it. Wednesday if I have trouble with your father, but I doubt he’ll deny me anything I want after this morning. Now, as soon as we’re done with lunch, I want you to go to the library and see if she isn’t the first person to ask after you.”  
“She always is,” Loki admitted, the fact spilling from his mouth before it fully registered in his brain. He needed to calm down; compulsive honesty was telling of how jumbled he was emotionally.  
“My point is made. Come on, then, your father will be wondering what we’ve been scheming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a baby now, and a c-section scar. This means I suddenly have a lot less time for epics like Another Turn of the Wheel. Going to write out a few one-shots that have been bouncing around my head, I think.


End file.
